ИСТИНА

The specific object of the present communication is the Potter’s Oracle (P. Graf = Vienna G.29787; P. Rainer = Vienna G.19813; P. Oxy. 2332; etc.) highlighted as a specimen of not merely ideological and religious but also a historical concept. Its description of Egypt’s calamities and the prophecy on the advent of a legitimate king as their remedy are well-known as belated replicas of the earlier Egyptian texts, especially the Prophecy of Neferti. However, the setting of the Potter’s Oracle is the court of the king Amenophis known otherwise from the stories about the ‘second Hyksos’ invasion’ of Egypt at the writings by Manetho (Ios. Flav. C.Ap. I. 26. §§ 232-251= FGrH. 609. F. 10) and Chaeremon of Alexandria (id. §§ 288-292 = FGrH. 618. F.1). Hence, the ‘potter’s oracle’ itself, as planned by the author of the text, must have described a situation specific (corresponding in the historical reality to the Macedonian rule) but by no means unique and occurred in the Egyptian history, to say the least, twice (during the original ‘first’ and the ‘second’ Hyksos invasions). The denotation ‘city by the sea’ is applied specifically to Alexandria but the denotation ‘Typhonians’ is given to the foreign invaders after the name of god (Typhon = Seth) who is connected with all population of the world outside Egypt, without exemplifying any exact people or land. Moreover, the ‘happy ending’ prophesized by the potter is rather humble, if compared to traditional Egyptian military texts: he foretells no total victory over the ‘Typhonians’, or the submission of their lands but merely their expulsion out of Egypt. One should pay attention to the importance given to the return of gods’ statues ‘imprisoned’ in Alexandria – a detail appeared in the text due to Egypt’s long contact in the 1st Millennium B.C. with stronger Near Eastern empires. However, still more important is the ‘historical conclusion’ derived from this experience by the author of the text and, probably, in the prototype of Manetho’s and Chaeremon’s stories: contacts with the world outside Egypt are no good, the isolationist attitude to it is the best course (probably, because Egypt is not strong enough to achieve something better while a defeat by foreigners costs it too much). This view is blatantly contrasted by another prophecy and its realization in the Romance of Alexander (PsCall. A: I, 4.5, 34.5): Alexander is portrayed there as a ‘new Sesonchosis’, i.e. an incarnation of a Pharaoh creator of the world empire, which was lost to foreigners but bound to return under Egyptian sway. Affinity with the Prophecy of Neferti can again be discussed here (the king Ameni was foretold to restore order in Egypt and Alexander throughout the world empire with Egypt as its center); however, when this imperial illusion about the benefit of Macedonian rule vanished, another, ‘isolationist’, historical concept gained the upper hand in the Potter’s Oracle and similar texts.